History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

176 HISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. IV.

generals and emperors was remembered in Persia, and that everything connected with antiquity, whether in history, religion, letters, writing, or language, was called Pehlevi or belonging to the ancient rulers of the country, the Parthians.” Dr. West agrees with Dr. Haug. Whether Dr Haug’s way of connecting it with Parthia is right or not, this much seems certain, that the name was derived from that of a place, because we see that all other subsequent languages derived their names from the countries where they were spoken.

As to its literature, Dr. West, a well-known Pehlevi scholar of our times, and a coadjutor of the late Dr. Haug, says that, “ though we must look to the Avesta for information regarding the main outlines of the Parsi religion, it is to the Pehlevi writings we must refer for most of the details relating to the traditions, ceremonies, and customs of this ancient faith which styles itself emphatically, ‘the good religion of the Mazdayasnans,’ and calls its laity Behdinan or ‘those of the good religion.’ In the fragments of the Avesta which still exist we may trace the solid foundations of the religion laid by philosophic bards and lawgivers of old, with many a mouldering column and massive fragment of the superstructure erected upon them by the ancient priesthood. While in the Pehlevi texts we find much of the mediaeval edifice

built by later Persian priesteraft wpon the old founda-